Tzotzil of San Bartolomé de los Llanos - Kinship

Kin Groups and Descent.
Kinship in San Bartolomé is formally bilateral, but there is a
slight bias toward patrilineality in practice. Family names are
transmitted patrilineally; they take a binomial form in which the first
surname is in Spanish, the second in Tzotzil. Each Tzotzil surname is
linked to one and only one Spanish surname, but most Spanish surnames in
local use are tied to more than one Tzotzil surname. There are no
corporate social groups based on family names, but rules of exogamy
prohibit marriage between two individuals with the same Tzotzil
patronymic. Codescendants of the same grandparents may not marry.

Ritual kinship (
compadrazgo
) is established by the sponsorship of ceremonies, particularly child
baptism. Primary relatives do not become
compadres.
After the ceremony, all the ancestors of a child being baptized and the
current spouses of those ancestors still alive are regarded as compadres
of the ritual sponsor and all of the sponsor's ancestors.
Compadrazgo thus establishes an explicitly bounded corporate group, and
the living members of the group have social functions as a group.

Kinship Terminology.
The cross-generational principle of age relative to Ego affects all
terms for consanguineal relatives. For example, father's brother,
brother, and brother's son are all called by the same term if
they are older than Ego. Another term is used for younger brother and
other collateral relatives younger than Ego, even if those relatives are
in an ascending generation. Kinship terms and accompanying behavior
emphasize the inequality between elder and younger consanguineal
relatives. Affinal terms, on the other hand, are reciprocal and reflect
status equality for those of the same generation relative to the couple
whose marriage established the affinal relationship. Kinship is
recognized bilaterally. Lineal relatives older than Ego are
distinguished from collateral relatives. The line blurs among relatives
younger than Ego, particularly in the second descending generation.

Although most terms are shared, the terminological system used by men is
not the same as that used by women; differences include both the
delineation of classes of relatives and individual lexical items. For
example, men's terms for collateral relatives distinguish males
from females when these are younger than Ego, whereas women use a single
term for younger collaterals of both sexes. The women's term is
not phonetically similar to either of the terms used by men.

In the case of ritual kinship, only the terms for ritual kin are used,
even though compadres might also be related by birth or by marriage.
Where there is neither ritual, nor consanguineal, nor affinal kinship,
kinship terms for collateral relatives are extended to all members of
the community on the basis of relative age. Kinship terminology used in
this extended sense marks senior/junior status inequality. Only
compadres and same-generation affinals are seen as equals.

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